Hebrews 3:12 "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, (and when there is no trust, then it’s an easy step to do what?) in departing from the living God."
You’ve heard us say it, as we come back to Exodus chapter 23, "What is America’s number one problem?" It’s not politics, or economics, but rather it’s spiritual. We’ve lost our ability to trust, that's having faith! As a nation of people we no longer have any respect for the absolutes of this Book, and we’re suffering the consequences. Restore America back to the Truth and trust of our fathers, and most of our problems would disappear. But they will not because they will not believe what God says. Well here is the lesson for us now from Israel’s experience going into the Promised Land.
The Israelites came from down at Mount Sinai in the Arabian desert, and came up to Kadesh, and yes, this is where they were going to go first, was up through the fertile area of what we presently call the land of Israel or secularizing it, it’s the land of Palestine. But the Promised Land was everything from the river of Egypt, around the Mediterranean, past Mount Herman, and all the way to the Euphrates River, clear out to the gulf of Persia, and back around to the Red Sea, and back over to the river of Egypt. Now that’s the Promised Land, not this that they have today. The little strip of land now occupied by them and which all others are trying to push them out of.
According to the Bellfore Agreement of 1918 when Great Britain first agreed to give the Hebrews a home land, all of this is about what they had drawn out. We mean just about all of this, but not quite, but we see it wasn’t very long until they started having second thoughts, so they pulled all that away and made Jordan, and then they gave the Hebrews what we now presently think of as the land of Israel. But listen, the Promised Land is that whole middle east out to the Euphrates River, and we’ll show that in Scripture in just a little bit. Now coming into Exodus chapter 23, and verse 25.
Exodus 23:25-27 "And you shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of you. (and here we come with all the material and earthly blessings) There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in your land: the number of your days I will fulfill. I will send my fear before you, and will destroy all the people to whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs unto you." In other words, what does that mean? Hey, their enemies are going to run. They’ll be running out ahead of them. Now verse 28. God says:
Exodus 23:28a "And I will send hornets before you,…"
Now listen, we don’t care if the Canaanites were twelve feet tall, could they withstand a hive of hornets? No way, we don’t care how big they were. God said, "I’ll send hornets and just drive them out!" Can you picture it? God meant business, He said, "This is what I’ll do. I’ll drive them out and you won’t even have to lift a sword. All you’ve got to do is walk in behind them and settle down." Now let’s read on.
Exodus 23:28-29a "And I will send hornets before you which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you. I will not drive them out from before you in one year;…" In other words I’m not going to drive them out so fast that you can’t pick up taking care of their vineyards and orchards and so forth. We’ll go slow enough that you can take over and cultivate, and keep everything going.
Exodus 23:29b-31 "…lest the beast of the field multiply against you. By little and little I will drive them out from before you, until your increased, and inherit the land." (my what a promise God made. Now here come their boundaries) And I will set your bounds from the Red Sea (which is down here on the south remember) even to the sea of the Philistines, (which is the Mediterranean) and from the desert to the river: (which is the great river Euphrates) for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hands; and you shall drive them out before you." Now with all this goodness being spread before them, here’s the admonition in verse 32.
Exodus 23:32-33 "You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me: for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you."
Now let’s go to the Book of Deuteronomy for a moment, and Deuteronomy is sort of a book review, where Moses recaps everything that has happened. We always have a hard time deciding where to jump in because this is all good. If anyone would like to have an interesting evening of reading just read the Book of Deuteronomy. It is one portion of Scripture that is almost like a story, and not hard to understand. So let’s just jump in at verse 2, because here is where we were referring to. It was just an eleven day journey from Mount Sinai to Kadesh - we mean just 11 days. Then they could have started taking the Promised Land, could have occupied it and could have had all the goodness of it. But like we've pointed out before, instead of 11 days, how long was it until Joshua brought them in across the Jordan River? 40 long and arduous years! So they stretched 11 days into 40 years because of unbelief.
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